Empire and Independence

In 1940, Winston Churchill said ‘If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour’. In fact, the Empire would barely last another quarter century. In the immediate aftermath of the War, Nationalist movements strengthened, international pressure increased and Britain’s own financial position became ever more precarious. From India in 1947, to Ghana and Malaya in 1957 and finally Hong Kong in 1997, these films illustrate the rapid, often unforeseen, moves towards Independence as the Empire dissolved within a generation.

The Colonial Film website is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and features films from the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.